A Bloody Field by Shrewsbury Page 9

  The sun was high and bright as he dropped gently out of the hills towards the vale, faintly misted with vapour, and saw in the far distance before him the mole-hill of Ruthyn, hunched and veiled in the smoke of its house-fires, a delicate blue flower in the sparkling folded green, with the giant hogback of Moel Famau towering beyond. And he saw, too, narrowing eyes that were used to singling out detail at great distance, the betraying glitter of sunlight upon arms, below him in the copses of the valley. A crackle and sparkle of steel, spitting light and vanishing into shadow, but to reappear by spasmodic flashes thereafter, moving up towards him. They were no threat to him; they were far away, and he was in tree-shade, and had nothing bright about him to catch the light. He was invisible; and at need he could better their speed. He loitered, untroubled but curious, for they were no small company, and by the line of their march they had come from Ruthyn. Reginald de Grey reckoned every Welshman a thief and an outlaw, and had his borders patrolled as though against the entire army of France, in great measure creating the animosity and disorder he saw everywhere; and this company might be no more than a routine patrol meant to impress and intimidate on his usual terms. Yet they moved with more than usual purpose towards the hills; and it was always a possibility, however remote, that some vagabond poacher or time-expired soldier living wild had hit upon Owen’s outposts without being detected, and thought it worth his while to carry a tale to Ruthyn.

  He did not take it too seriously, but nonetheless he wheeled his pony and made off at speed, back towards the fringes of Clocaenog, where he had passed the last of the prince’s watch. The man looked down at him from his perch in a beech-tree above the track, and laughed.

  “You think we’re asleep, up here? A runner went to the prince half an hour since—by now he knows better than you. Get on your way, and watch how you cross them, for it’s Grey’s livery they’re wearing.”

  It was true enough, he had good need to take thought for his own safe passage, for his course must somewhere cross that of the armed company. To avoid their notice, and give them time to get clear of the folded valley before he ventured it, he turned on a contour course towards Ruthyn, and kept in the fringes of the forest, watching the glint of steel come and go on the track lower down the slope, drawing steadily nearer to him, but some half-mile below. And having found a vantage-point where he had a clear view of the meadows and was himself sheltered, he halted his pony and stood to watch, narrowing his eyes to single out coat-armour, and number the forces in the English party.

  There were archers with them, but not a great company, and some three-score men-at-arms, all mounted; and a knot of bright devices he could not quite read at that distance, though their colours did almost as well. Four knights at least, all Grey’s men; and a rugged, thickset figure in half-armour, whose seat in the saddle was familiar, even if the black horse under him had not been so signally ornamented with his blazon. Reginald de Grey himself was on the move, with a strong and well-mounted party in arms.

  They passed, and left the valley free for him to cross. He waited until they were lost to sight beyond a fold of ground and a belt of trees, and then made good speed down to the little river, splashed through it where the banks were level and firm, and climbed the slope on the other side. Clocaenog village he left at a distance on his left hand, and wound his way up into the hills again. But his mind was not easy. It was an ill omen that Grey should appear on this day of all days, so close to where Owen lay hidden, newly resolved to take Hotspur’s advice, bide his time for peace-making, and forbear aggravating the English further. Any and all but one! And that one had to appear, like a spirit raised by necromancy, suddenly almost within grasp of his hand. And for what purpose, with such a force, unless he had some word of power to lure him out of his castle?

  The old quarrel, sprung from a tract of land in dispute, had been fomented by many acts of hostility since. When King Henry had summoned his muster for Scotland, the year after his coronation, Grey had been charged with delivering the summons to his Welsh neighbour, and had withheld it until too late, so that the lord of Glyndyfrdwy was exposed to the charge of being a traitor. Out of this personal feud had burned up, like the sudden flaring into splendour of a bush fire, the old, old quarrel that belonged not solely to Owen, but to Wales. After so long of acquiescence, the Welsh felt themselves Welsh again, a nation with a prince and a prophet of their own. And yet the personal bitterness still rankled in the heart of the fire, and as it had kindled it, so might it sour it and put it out.

  His uneasiness grew, and yet he could not tell why, for the prince was warned, and could very well deal with this matter. Avoidance would be easy, the camp could dissolve into the hills like mist within half an hour. More likely, if the force from Ruthyn seemed to be passing without ill intent, they would merely sit still and let the enemy go. Yet Iago suddenly wheeled his pony again, and made for the highest point of the ridge, where he could look back over the valley, and see as far as the scattered outer copses and the rim of the forest.

  Far below him the river was a silver thread, curling and twining through meadows freshly green in sunlight; and beyond it the folded hillocks rose plumed with clumps of trees, heaving and falling in a series of green bowls all along the flank of the dimpled ridge that soared to the dark green of woodland above. He saw, as though some wall painting had come to life before his eyes, the glitter of steel and the minute clusters of rainbow colours just moving over the crest of one rise, to descend into the next bowl; and riding towards them, negligently like men out hawking, he saw a smaller group, no more than half a dozen mounted men, who had been until this moment hidden from them by the lie of the land.

  There was an instant when both parties halted at gaze, no more than a quarter of a mile apart; and though they were so far from him across the valley, he felt the shock of confrontation and recognition quiver through his own body as they measured each other. Then the handful of riders wheeled their mounts in wild haste, and rode back by the way they had come, and after them in headlong pursuit streamed Reginald de Grey and his knights and men-at-arms. The quarry must needs have ridden steeply uphill if they were to gain the cover of the trees, and he saw that they were not even attempting it, but climbing only very obliquely towards shelter, preferring to gain distance on the level. And as the half-dozen lengthened into a line, he watched them like a file of horsemen on a hanging tapestry, each separate, and the last flagging. He saw the tall grey horse stumble, or seem to stumble, and recover but lamely. The pursuers saw it, too, and lingeringly across the valley, long after they had launched it, he heard their shout of triumph. The Lord Owen was taken at a disadvantage, surprised in the open, hunted like a hart, and his horse fallen lame.

  The men of Ruthyn had abandoned all caution, spurring their horses furiously, lengthening out in their turn into a long frieze parallel with the edge of the forest, every man mad to be the first to lay hand on the arch-enemy. Iago felt in his blood the coming of the climax, the moment when Owen had drawn them, with his body for bait, exactly where he would have them, with all eyes on him, and never an archer ready to string bow, or a lookout to shout an alarm. There had never been a more insolent ambush. He did not know whether to laugh or to weep.

  Suddenly the grey horse was lame no more, but picked up his heels and leaped ahead with stretched neck and lunging shoulders, the prince lying forward over his neck and thrusting with him, as though he and his beast were one flesh. The gap between him and his pursuers widened; and at the same moment, though they were invisible and their volley could not be followed by eve or ear, the Welsh archers deployed all along the rim of the forest loosed their shafts together.

  It was like corn falling before the scythe. They had every man his mark, and they loosed at leisure; not at the horses—good horses never came amiss, and certainly never were wasted—but at the men. The mounts, suddenly lightened and without hand on the rein, wheeled and circled curiously in the heaving bushes and trampled grass, more at a loss than frightene
d. Without a sound the men of Ruthyn, more than half of those leading the pursuit, fell with the impetus of the arrows that pierced them, heeling out of their saddles like a breaking wave, downhill from the forest. Some were dragged by a foot still caught in the stirrup, round in a circle in the turf. Some shook themselves clear, and even rose again, but many lay threshing, and some lay still. And before those following could rein in and look for cover, or dismount and string their bows, or drive headlong into the trees from which their death was launched, the second volley followed the first. At that range, Welsh arrows could shear through plate-armour and fine mail shirts within, and these were riding half-armed.

  Owen and his half-dozen were in the trees by then. They took breath for a few moments before they emerged, after the third volley, to finish what they had begun, the Welsh swordsmen boiling out of the bushes joyously on their heels. Iago watched that fight to its end, and saw the survivors haled away into the forest and silence. A few, those who had been last in the line, turned their horses in time and rode for Ruthyn to carry the news, and were not hindered in their going. All the wilds of the Cambrian mountains were at Owen’s back, there were plenty of places where Reginald de Grey could safely be hidden, long before any party ventured out of Ruthyn to collect and bury the dead.

  Iago dug his heels into his fat pony’s ribs, and took the shortest way down into the Dee valley, riding hard for Shrewsbury. And still he did not know whether he should be laughing or weeping.

  * * *

  He came into Hotspur’s presence in the abbot’s lodging at Shrewsbury abbey, still stained and dusty from the road, a thin brown packman with some plea about a permit to carry his goods to Chester. His extraordinary eyes he veiled with lowered lids and humility, and only the satirical curve of his long lips, accentuated by those twin russet flames that forked upwards through his short black beard, caused the chamberlain who admitted him to look at him a second time. Both chamberlain and clerk accepted it without question when they were dismissed from attendance. There were no other petitioners waiting, and they had routine work to do. This fellow’s matter was simple enough.

  “You’ve made good speed,” said Hotspur when they were alone. “Better even than you promised me. You have a letter for me?”

  “My lord, I have.” But he held it in his hands still, not yet proffering it; and his eyes were unveiled now, two slivers of clear sky, but a winter sky. “My lord, I entreat you to believe that what you find in this letter was honestly written and honestly meant. I pledge my own honour for it. But there has that happened since that may well have changed all.”

  Hotspur sat very still, watching his visitor’s face. “What has happened? There has been no news here.”

  “Not yet. But there will be. I have come straight from the event, and as your lordship sees, I have wasted no time in applying to you.”

  “I am content,” said Hotspur quietly, “that you have fulfilled all terms, and done everything you undertook to do. What more has happened cannot be of your doing. But I need to know.”

  “Read the letter,” said Iago.

  Hotspur broke the seal in silence, and unrolled the parchment. Owen had written to him in his own hand, a fine and scholarly hand. He read it through, while Iago watched his always eloquent face.

  “To the most noble and excellent Sir Henry Percy, Knight, Greeting and Love!

  “For your lordship’s letter, duly come to hand, I send you my thanks and my grateful sense of your lordship’s kindness and good feeling towards me. I have, as I ever had, the fullest confidence in your honour, and am willing in all things to deal with you as man with man. But I confess that I have not the same trust in some your peers. Nor does the issue of life and death rest only with your estate, as we have well seen in the fate of those earls lately in dispute with the king’s Grace who fell into the hands of certain lawless gatherings of commoners, and were shortly done to death. I will well, therefore, that you should, as you have said, deal for me as you may, and when you summon me to conference with your own warranty, I will not hesitate to come. But for no other will I come in confidence, unless it be for Prince Henry, whose mind I conceive as noble, and his word as his bond.

  “And to the end that you may deal for me without hindrance, to bring about this peace, I undertake that I will not henceforth, at least until I do withdraw this word, have any ado of my own willing with any English company in arms, but will forbear them as you counsel. And for the rest, if any do challenge me, and I cannot but defend myself, you shall hold me justified and excused. Though whether any other of your part will, neither you nor I can well determine before the event.

  “I greet your lordship well, in the hope of a good deliverance for us all, and look to hear from you again, God willing.

  “Given under my hand, this eleventh day of April, the year of our Lord fourteen hundred and two.

  “Owain Glyn Dwr, lord of Glyndyfrdwy and Cynllaith.”

  He looked up from the scroll, thoughtful and faintly frowning: “You know what the Lord Owen writes to me?”

  “I know what he gave me to understand he would write. And I know it was written in good faith.”

  “That I never doubted. So what has befallen to make this of none account? And how came you to know of it, if it befell, as it seems, after you had left the Lord Owen?”

  “I myself witnessed it, my lord, though from a distance.” He told it, exactly as he had seen it, not concealing that there were curious and doubtful points in it which even witnessing could not make plain. “Sure I am that until this party was sighted, the Lord Owen had no thought in his mind of any such happening, and no plans to provoke it. But when the word reached him, and especially when it was seen that Lord Grey himself was with the party, thereafter I cannot be sure. I tell what I saw. The English came over a crest, face to face with the Lord Owen in open field. And they spurred forward to pursue and take him, no doubt believing it a happy chance for them, and the Lord Owen caused his horse to appear to drop lame, and so encouraged and led them until they were spread all along the field in open order, within close range of the bowmen in the woods. When he had them so placed, he spurred ahead and drew clear, and the archers cut them down like corn. Only a few of the rearmost broke away and escaped back towards Ruthyn. But whether they came out knowing of the Welsh camp, and with some plan of attack, which the Lord Owen by his own stratagem forestalled, or whether they were on other business and would have passed by but for this lure, I tell you honestly, I do not know. And even if they meant him no threat, how could the Lord Owen be sure of it? And with all his force to guard, how dared he assume it?”

  “You argue well,” agreed Hotspur, watching him keenly, and with a sudden remote spark in his eyes that looked like involuntary laughter. “And whatever the way of it, had I been in the Lord Owen’s place, with my chief enemy thus presented naked into my hand, I doubt if I could have resisted the temptation. Certain it is, if he had more than three-score armed men with him, he was not on his way to church! Well, tell on to the end. The archers cut them down—a few broke back for home unscathed. Some, no doubt, made their way back later with their hurts. Were there prisoners taken?”

  “My lord, there were. I saw two or three of the knights haled away into the woods. And after them,” he said with deliberation, “Lord Grey himself. If he was hurt at all, it was but a minor hurt—he walked where he was led.” He caught the wide, levelled eyes watching him with the first faint shadow of doubt and disquiet, almost distaste, and laughed shortly. “Oh, never wonder about me, my lord! You are the first of the king’s officers to know that Lord Grey of Ruthyn is carried off prisoner into Wales, and if this moment you turned out the muster of every shire between here and Denbigh, and loosed them into Clocaenog forest, do you think you would find hide or hair of a Welshman there? I would not have told you place or time if I did not know that every man of them is far into the mountains and out of your reach long before this. And I tell you now in order that you may reckon well what cha
nce is left of keeping any hope of peace alive, after this skirmish. For I do believe you honest in desiring it, and so it deals fairly with the Lord Owen, I desire it, too, and will still be your instrument in pursuing it. But I tell you plainly, I count the chances as low enough.”

  The shadow broke like a cloud, and was blown away in a gust of rueful laughter. “And so do I, Iago, so do I! What can follow now but renewed war, and hotter than before? Can I argue and persuade for moderation, when every baron along the march will see himself in Grey’s shoes? I am sorry, Iago, that it is so soon over.”

  “For this time,” said Iago, and slid the ring from his finger. There is also money which is yours.”

  “No. Keep it—keep both. I hope there will yet be occasion to make use of them again in the same cause, even if we must wait now for a better opportunity. Or a verdict in the field,” he said, abruptly flashing fire, “for if you have occasion to speak with the Lord Owen again, you may tell him I will not spare to do my uttermost against him.”

  “That he knows,” said Iago, “and would expect of you.”

  “Yet I would rather a resolution less wasteful. So, Iago, keep the ring. And if you ever have word for me that may bear fruit, come and ask entry to me wherever I am. And should I need you, can I find you or get in touch with you at Rhodri Parry’s house?”

  “They may not always know where to find me. But they will always know the times when I shall be here in Shrewsbury, and I will see to it that whenever possible they shall have word of my moves between.” He thought of Julian in her drab housewife’s gown, with her still, tense body and her hungry eyes, and he said, hardly knowing why, or whether it was mischief in him or mercy: “If you need me, apply to the girl. She keeps at home now, and she can be as secret as any man.”